Counting down to an Election Day expected to draw record-shattering turnout, voting-rights watchdogs are sounding the alarm that a repeat of the Florida fiasco of 2000 could occur in any of a dozen battleground states. Lawsuits are already flying in many of these states. Voting-rights advocates in Colorado, for example, told a federal judge Wednesday that nearly 30,000 voters were recently purged in violation of federal voting rights law and should be restored in time for Election Day. ...

A Filipino immigrant who faced deportation for nearly a decade after she registered to vote while getting a driver's license - and then went ahead and cast a ballot - has been cleared of wrongdoing by a federal appellate court. Elizabeth Keathley, of Bloomington, Ill., will be able to stay in the U.S. under a ruling from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and has been approved for permanent residence by a Department of Justice immigration judge. "I feel like I am now part of...

Q: As the board secretary of our 29-unit co-op building, I am responsible for determining who is eligible to vote at special owner meetings and our annual board election. I know that shareholders on the stock certificate are clearly eligible to vote, but in several cases the stock certificate lists only one spouse, not the other, and sometimes the certificate only lists a trust. Is the stock certificate the only way to determine eligibility? A: The shareholder's name on a stock...

SPRINGFIELD - House lawmakers today advanced a measure that would ask voters this fall if Illinois should strengthen ballot protections and ban voter suppression tactics. House Speaker Michael Madigan's proposed constitutional amendment, which would be placed on the Nov. 4 ballot, says no person should be denied registration and voting rights based on race, color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, language or income. The House sent the measure to the Senate...

Are you allowed to take time off work to vote? Unfortunately, most people have no idea what's allowed when it comes to lining up at the polls during business hours. "The reason nobody has ever tackled explaining to workers what their rights are is because employment law in the United States is so convoluted," explains Anne Janks, director of CanMyBossDoThat.com- a non-profit website started in 2009 by Interfaith Worker Justice. "There are federal and state laws, and every single one has different...

SPRINGFIELD - Illinois would beef up protections of eligible voters to ensure they can register and cast a ballot without fear of voter suppression under a measure Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan advanced Tuesday. The proposed constitutional amendment, which would be placed on the November ballot, says no person should be denied voter rights based on race, color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, language or income. The measure seeks to counter a...

Listeners to Kojo Nnamdi's radio program here have been calling for weeks, hopeful that the District of Columbia, after decades of pleading, is finally on the verge of receiving a full vote in Congress. The goal is tantalizingly close. For the first time in three decades, the Senate last week approved a bill that would grant a House seat to the district, removing one of the largest hurdles to the measure. The bill passed with a substantial...

Oct 19 (Reuters) - A five-member commission that was appointed to oversee Thursday's Thailand FA (FAT) presidential election has refused to approve Worawi Makudi's victory over former national team manager Virach Charnpanich. Worawi, a member of the FIFA executive committee, polled 42 votes to Virach's 28 during the election, which was delayed due to the implementation of controversial reforms. One club was disqualified from the election while there was another 'no...

A Serbian refugee waits for her laundry to dry Tuesday in a sports hall 31 miles east of Belgrade, Yugoslavia, where more than 2,000 refugees from Bosnia are being sheltered. Hours before the opening of the 47th annual UN General Assembly, European nations moved to deny Serb-dominated Yugoslavia voting rights as punishment for fomenting the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The move by the Europeans would make Yugoslavia-which now consists only of Serbia and Montenegro-an international pariah.

Q: As the board secretary of our 29-unit co-op building, I am responsible for determining who is eligible to vote at special owner meetings and our annual board election. I know that shareholders on the stock certificate are clearly eligible to vote, but in several cases the stock certificate lists only one spouse, not the other, and sometimes the certificate only lists a trust. Is the stock certificate the only way to determine eligibility? A: The shareholder's name on a stock...

Gov. Jim Edgar's amendatory veto Thursday will prevent homeless citizens outside Chicago from voting Nov. 3. While endorsing the concept of voting rights for the homeless, Edgar said the legislation, passed by the General Assembly in the spring, didn`t contain sufficient safeguards against vote fraud. He used his amendatory veto to add anti-fraud provisions, but lawmakers cannot accept Edgar's changes until Nov. 17, at the earliest, when they reconvene for the fall veto session.

Kemba Smith Pradia went to Tallahassee, Fla., last week to demand the right to vote. Back in the '90s, when she was just Kemba Smith, she became a poster child for the excesses and inanities of the so-called War on Drugs. Pradia, then a college student in Virginia, became involved with, and terrorized by, a man who choked and punched her regularly and viciously. By the impenetrable logic of battered women, she thought it was her fault. The boyfriend was a drug dealer. Pradia never handled...

(Reuters) - Attorney General Eric Holder said on Thursday the Department of Justice would ask a federal court to reinstate its authority over Texas voting laws as part of a new Obama administration strategy to challenge state and local election laws it says discriminate by race. There have been more challenges to the Voting Rights Act in the past two years than in the previous 45 years combined, culminating in the Supreme Court's decision in June striking down components...

By David Ingram WASHINGTON, July 16 (Reuters) - The U.S. office charged with protecting the voting rights of racial minorities is changing its focus but not its commitment after the Supreme Court last month invalidated part of a federal voting rights law, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday. Speaking at a major civil rights convention in Florida, Holder said he was shifting staff within the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division...

When the Supreme Court struck down a major section of the Voting Rights Act, which required nine states to get federal approval of any election change, there were howls of anger and despair among liberals. They see the provision as vital to preventing new efforts to marginalize minority voters throughout the South, and they see no hope that Congress will act to create new protections. But why the pessimism? The court practically invited Congress to draw up a new list of states needing...